The Established Path of Discipleship

Many blogs, YouTube channels, and websites are dedicated to exposing false teachers. Every day, a new tweet or post with a video clip of some bizarre teaching with commentary from the discernment blogger or ministry appears on our feeds. You can spend hours on Instagram or Reels watching these clips. Why spend hours or even minutes watching these videos or reading those posts? And another thing, who has the time to do that?

Please do not misunderstand. Many reputable scholars research cults and false teachers and expose their errors on blogs and websites. We should use those resources whenever we have questions concerning one of these aberrant groups or false teachers. Yet, it seems that many (I am sure they are sincere) people spend their days perusing the Internet, watching video clips of sermons in the hunt for a false teacher. First, where do they find the time for endless hours of browsing? Second, I suppose some have a Patreon account with many supporters who subsidize their endless hours of browsing.

Heresy hunting, however, is not a ministry in the New Testament. Consider Jude 1:3-4:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

We contend or strive intensely to preserve the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Looking at the context, it appears that false teachers “crept in unnoticed.” I do not think this means going on an online heresy hunt. It does mean, however, to be alert to false teaching creeping into the church. Granted, some false teaching sneaks into the church online as congregants watch it and share it with their friends. That does not mean we should go looking for it.

Also, consider this passage from 1 Timothy:

As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions (1 Tim. 1:3-7).

Paul charges Timothy, the pastor of the church of Ephesus, to remain there to address the false teaching threatening the church. He does not send Timothy on a mission trip to look for heretics in the Roman empire. This blog is by no means an exhaustive study of addressing heresy in The New Testament, but it seems that the NT pattern for addressing false teaching is to do so as it arises in your church or ministry context.

If you are a mature Christian, I encourage you not to waste your time scrolling online looking for the next heretic to expose. Instead, get your regular feeding and encouragement come from your pastor and elders. If you encounter false teaching in your church, address it as it arises. Ask your pastor and elders if you are a new Christian and unsure about something. When weighing the veracity of any teaching, we must compare it to Scripture. What does the Bible say about this? We can see what the Church has taught concerning a particular doctrine by consulting our historic creeds and confessions. Spend your time mining the treasures of the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints,” and do not waste hours trolling through the sewer looking for something that stinks.